The pressures of the captaincy, opening and fielding in the slip cordon are
not allowing Cook the time to think about his own game

In the vain quest to raise spirits before the start of the final Test, Alastair Cook stated that what had gone before in this blighted series was irrelevant. “As always at the start of a match the scoreline starts at 0-0,” he declared.

It was a white lie, of course. England’s forlorn batting yesterday had everything to do with what had gone before. In the past six weeks Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris have only had to mark out their run-ups to be three-quarters of the way to ravaging England’s batting.

Cook’s own dismissal to the second ball of the day, lbw to Harris, was a prime example. On the surface, it looked a terrible misjudgement. And it was a terrible misjudgement. But it had been engineered by the bowler’s systematic undermining of him during the series.

Cook has a history of getting out caught behind, pushing indecisively at a fullish ball slanted across him outside off stump – a ball it is not necessary to play. Harris dismissed him with just such a delivery in the first innings of the series in Brisbane. It pitched around the off stump but Harris had created a slight angle, having released the ball from slightly wide of the crease.

Cook, whose weight tends to be planted slightly back early in his innings, was a little slow transferring his movement forward and pushed tentatively at the ball. The resulting edge was comfortably pouched by Brad Haddin. England were 28 for 1. A short time later they were 136 all out. First blood to the Australian fast bowlers.

That type of dismissal preys on Cook’s mind. He knows he has not been genuinely bowled out but has been lured into an avoidable error. He has worked hard to try and eradicate that minor flaw from his game. As he will never be an intimidating batsman in the Matthew Hayden mould, one who plunges onto the front foot and assaults the ball, his solution is to leave as many deliveries as possible outside off. The idea is to persuade the bowlers to aim straighter so that he can pick runs off on his preferred leg side.

Unlike the last Ashes series here however, the Australians have not been so easily hoodwinked. They have stuck to their pre-series blueprint, which has involved giving Cook nothing on his pads, and using angles subtly to draw him into playing at, or leaving, off-stump balls that he should not.

Yesterday’s early departure means Harris has now taken his wicket more times (eight) than any other bowler in world cricket.

The ‘angles’ ploy has worked on Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell too, with a simple strategy of bowling the same line of delivery from different positions on the crease. Both Harris and Peter Siddle excel at this, borrowing the tactic from Shane Warne, whose abiding mantra was: “It is not what you bowl but how it got there.”

It is not altogether surprising that Cook has fallen prey to this tactic. He has so much on his mind. Test match debutants, reshuffled batting orders, new wicketkeepers, disgruntled fast bowlers, departed or detached senior players and inadequate support bowlers. It is too much for one man to handle, especially when that man opens the batting and fields at first slip.

That has to change. He should continue as captain and opener, but he must escape from the hot seat of first slip and instead graze at mid-on, where he can have a better overview and be closer to the bowler. That is where he always used to field until he was captain. Give him a break.

They might have played the same number of Tests but Cook and Clarke have considerably different captaincy resources. As a part-time spinner Clarke has a better understanding of bowlers and their moods and has excellent hunches about wicket-taking. He also receives the daily wisdom of Warne and from a plethora of other commentary box figures. He has also had three years in the job. Cook, just 12 months into his tenure, is not a bowler and receives negligible assistance from the phalanx of ex-captains in the media, most of whom are as exasperated by events as he is.